from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

adj. Made of pinchbeck; sham; cheap; spurious; unreal.

n. An alloy of copper and zinc, resembling gold; a yellow metal, composed of about three ounces of zinc to a pound of copper. It is much used as an imitation of gold in the manufacture of cheap jewelry.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. An alloy of three or four parts of copper with one of zinc, much used in cheap jewelry.

They were ladies of lofty ambition, who for that reason were incapable of taking the least interest in what might be called the 'pinchbeck' things of life, even when they had an historic value, or, generally speaking, in anything that was not directly associated with some object aesthetically precious.

It seems difficult for our girls to discriminate between a style of dressing suitable to a wealthy woman of leisure and that suited to a girl in an office on a salary of possibly $12 per week; or to distinguish between really valuable clothing and pinchbeck imitations.

Lit-lit, tearfully shy and frightened, was bedecked by her bearded husband with a new calico dress, splendidly beaded moccasins, a gorgeous silk handkerchief over her raven hair, a purple scarf about her throat, brass ear-rings and finger-rings, and a whole pint of pinchbeck jewellery, including a Waterbury watch.

I was absurdly surprised to find, when I myself was converted, that every sort and condition of Christian, practising or pinchbeck, that you can find in the innumerable denominations of Protestantism, can be found in the Catholic Church.

Fox holds a potlatch to signalize his marriage to Lit-Lit and she, "tearfully shy and frightened, is bedecked by her husband with a new calico dress, splendidly beaded mocassins, a gorgeous silk handkerchief over her raven hair, a purple scarf about her throat, brass earrings and finger-rings, and a whole pint of pinchbeck jewelry, including a Waterbury watch."

I am already thinking about possible research subjects, though the question cannot really arise for several years yet, as I should very much like to feel that I have done some work by the time I leave academia behind, and also because I want to cock a snook at that absurd fellow who has bestridden the field for forty years like a pinchbeck colossus.

"To be sure there was a golden haze over those times and some of the gold was no doubt false, mere pinchbeck at the best; but even so they had an irreplaceable quality of their own..."--Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission, 169

"After watchmaker Christopher Pinchbeck (1670-1732), who invented it.It's ironic that today his name is a synonym for something counterfeitbut in his time his fame was worldwide, not only as the inventor ofthis curious alloy but also as a maker of musical clocks and orreries*.The composition of this gold-like alloy was a closely-guarded secretbut it didn't prevent others from passing off articles as if made fromthis alloy... faking fake gold!"

'Blackpool is more than a tower of lights and a rhinestone mile of slots and seasonal variety acts. It is Lancashire's pinchbeck LA.'Adam Edwards; Keeping Up And Away From the Neighbours; Daily Telegraph (London, UK); Jul 24, 2004."- A.W.A.D, November 19, 2007